April 24, 2008

This was the last week of clinic. I got to go to the POC on Monday for a "field trip". It was really interesting to go there and observe the audiologist in action. I was able to see one of the audiologist perform VRA with an 8 month old baby. The baby had SAT down to about 20 dB, which was excellent! I also saw another audiologist evaluate a 50 y/o woman who had normal hearing except at 8000 Hz, where she had a mild hearing loss. Overall, it was a pretty interesting morning!

Since I haven't tested any infants, I wanted to find an article about hearing evaluations with this population. In the article I found, the authors discussed the use of insert earphones with VRA to obtain ear and frequency specific information. In the article, they emphasized the use of 2 audiologists to perform VRA. As we have learned in class, while this may be the best option, it is often not cost or time effective. The paper also discussed how the tester operating the audiometer can signal the other tester when a stimulus is being presented.

Reference:
Jayarajan, V., Nandi, R., Caldicott, B. (2005). An innovation in insert visual reinforcement audiometry in children. The Journal of Laryngology & Otology, 119. 132-133.

If you would like to read this article, please use the following link:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=4&sid=761196e6-dea3-4d35-9cdc-eafed9718b74%40SRCSM2

April 17, 2008

This week was kind of a slow week since clinic is wrapping up for the semester. I saw a couple hearing aid checks mostly.

I did see one man who has been coming to the hearing clinic for years. He is 23. His mother stated that he wasn't hearing as well as she thought, so she made an appointment for him to come in for his annual hearing evaluation. His hearing had not changed and he said he was happy with his current hearing aid settings. We replaced the tubing bilaterally.

I found an article that dealt with the representational abilities and hearing status in child/mother dyads. In this study, the researchers looked at expressive and receptive language in symbolic play activities. The study was conducted on normal hearing and deaf children who had normal hearing and deaf mothers. As reported by the mothers, hearing children of both hearing and deaf mothers produced more words than deaf children with hearing or deaf mothers. Hearing children were also able to comprehend more words than the deaf children born to either parent. The findings from this study showed that there are many implications of hearing status in communication exchanges between mother and child.

Reference:
Bornstein, M.H., Selmi, A.M., Haynes, O.M., Painter, K.M., and Marx, E.S. (1999). Representational abilities and hearing status in children/mother dyads. Child Development. 70(4). 833-852.

If you would like to read this article, please copy and paste the following link into your browser.
http://wf2la1.webfeat.org/EgusJ1117/url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1132245.pdf